


the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

by ardentintoxication



Series: Hurt/Comfort Bingo [2012] [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Bruce Feels, Community: hc_bingo, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Poly Because Avengers, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Suicidal Thoughts, Suicide, Suicide Attempt, the avengers are a cuddly bunch and I can ship them if I want
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-27
Updated: 2012-11-27
Packaged: 2017-11-19 07:55:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/570946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ardentintoxication/pseuds/ardentintoxication
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times an Avenger contemplated suicide (and one time they got together to stop one). For the hc-bingo prompt "suicide attempt."</p>
            </blockquote>





	the heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

He's twenty-one and his parents are dead. His parents are dead and Obie's handprint is still on his shoulder, warm and heavy and comforting like his dad never is. Was. His parents are dead and he's actually of drinking age for once and so he binges. His parents are dead and he hates them and he misses them and he hates the confusion and he can almost hear his dad saying, "Finally found something you're not a genius at, huh?"

He passes out amid broken wineglasses and wishes for rolling over in his sleep and bleeding out on the floor.

* * *

He's twenty-three and he knows he's going to die. He hears Peggy's voice over the radio, knows she's crying and wishes more than anything that he could wipe the tears off her cheek. When there's something bigger than you, something human, something pushes the fear away, makes you stronger than you really are, and it's not until the fight is done that you realize how frightening that thing really was.

The ocean is different. The ocean is wide and cold and emotionless, and never has he felt so tiny and so powerless, but he can be brave one more time.

* * *

She's twenty-four and she knows that this mission is a death sentence. He's out to kill her. She doesn't care. She stopped caring back in the Red Room, where death was only part of training, and she figures that she's killed enough people that dying now isn't such a bad thing. She doesn't make it easy for him - she has her pride - but she makes some key mistakes (maybe deliberately, maybe not).

When both their missions go sour and he asks her (arrow to her heart) to trust him, she says yes, even though she's sure he'll kill her afterwards.

* * *

He watches his brother fall into the black starlit abyss of space and for one cruel moment (no, many cruel moments, stretched over time that seems to go forever) he wishes to join him. It is a coward's death, the death of one who does not face his life's hardships proudly but instead runs away in fear and weakness, and one that will surely send him to Hel's dark domain instead of joining the warriors who have gone before him in Valhalla.

That Loki would choose such a death over any other, because of him, is cause enough to weep.

* * *

Thirty-nine years is plenty of time to live, plenty of deaths to make up for and plenty of time to do it. He's on the fucking helicarrier, his death wouldn't be so bad. He'll just fall, for a few breathtaking minutes, enough time to see what it's like to really fly, and be dead before he notices he's hit the ground.

He's up and to the door before he turns around and sits down again. No. He's going to shut down that emotional part, and he's going to kill Loki: only then he'll think about the red in his ledger.

* * *

He's lost track of how many times he's tried to kill himself. The bullet to his brain. The time he tried to freeze to death. Taking a page out of the same book as some Buddhist monks and lighting himself on fire. He's never tried poisoning himself before (no labs, no time), but the SHIELD report just came back with seventeen civilian casualties directly caused by falling debris and he's got potassium iodide and hydrogen cyanide in a syringe and all he needs is an empty place to do it in case it doesn't work. He heads to his Smash Room, the place Tony built for him to bang around in if he didn't want to break any of his hi-tech equipment.

When he gets to the room, the team is already there, Clint and Natasha and Steve in pajamas, Thor wearing boxers and nothing else, Tony in the oil-stained Metallica T-shirt and jeans that he wears when he's working on a project until late.

"Well, _someone's_  been practicing poor lab safety," says Tony, like he actually gives a damn about lab safety. "You know that you're supposed to put sharps in the sharps box. You're lucky JARVIS was there to alert us or you might have stuck yourself."

"Dr. Banner..." says Captain America.

"If we even _have_ a sharps box-"

" _Bruce_ ," says Steve.

He doesn't realize that Natasha is behind him until she has lifted the syringe out of his hand, too quickly for him stop her. "I don't think you'll be needing this," she says, her voice very quiet but somehow amplified by the sudden lack of other voices in the room.

Bruce doesn't make excuses, and he doesn't try to pretend that it's somehow less serious than it actually is. He sits down on the floor, a faint ringing in his ears. He's failed many, many times, and it's always been because The Other Guy was stronger than him. This is a different kind of failure. He's always lost control before, but right now he feels too empty even to do that.

"You all shouldn't be here. Not right now. Don't- I'm low right now."

Clint sits down heavily beside him. "It's the fucking SHIELD report, isn't it?" he says without preamble. Bruce doesn't answer but it seems to be enough for Clint. "Thought so. Had the same look on my face after New York." Bruce looks at him, not really understanding. "You're not in control, but you're aware, right? You're aware but you can't stop yourself. Your body just keeps going and your mind's along for the ride. You're not the only one with red in your ledger, Bruce."

"That wasn't your fault!" protests Bruce. "That was forced on you, it wasn't like you decided to go out and get brainwashed-"

"What, like you _wanted_ to become the Other Guy?" asks Tony, sliding elegantly down the wall on Bruce's other side.

"I'm still ultimately responsible-"

"Guess I'm off the team, then, considering how many people my tech has killed. And that wasn't even brainwashing, that was something I did because it made me money and I liked it."

"You-"

"And Cap. Cap's killed people. You're off the team, too, Cap."

"Stark, this is serious."

"Calm down, Cap, you can join the cool kids club with me and Clint and Nat and Bruce."

"Friend Bruce," says Thor, kneeling in front of him with a look of incalculable sadness. "I have already lost one brother because he thought himself a monster. It would be terrible indeed if I were to lose another for the same cause."

The hug is unexpected. Bruce is pulled against Thor's chest, firm but not suffocating. There's a pause, a second of complete stillness, and then he's aware of Natasha's hair brushing his shoulder as she wraps delicate arms around his waist, then Clint mirroring her on the other side. Steve puts a warm hand on his shoulder and for a moment that seems to be enough, but Tony yanks an arm around his waist and pulls him down with the rest of them. He's aware, distantly, that his face is wet, but can't find the energy to move, even to dry his tears, so instead he sinks into the warmth and closeness of his team and sobs until he's exhausted.

He wakes up before he's even realized he's fallen asleep. He's on the couch in the living room, his head in someone's lap, facing the wall, their fingers gently carding through his hair. He doesn't really want to get up, and they don't say anything, so they sit there for ten minutes or more without saying anything. "It's not going to get any easier," they say at last, breaking the silence. It's Natasha. "They tell you it is, but it doesn't. You burn down a hospital of innocents to kill one mob boss and you realize that."

"Then how do you live with yourself?" Bruce murmurs.

"Sometimes I can't," she says. "Sometimes I need Clint to keep me sane." Her voice falters, but her fingers never stop their gentle movements against his scalp, through his curls. "Sometimes I remind myself that I am doing good in the world, that maybe it's not enough but at least it's something. You need something like that." There's a pause. "You know that Stark would build you your own free clinic if you asked him to."

"Yeah," he says. "He probably would. Hell, he'd probably make it the most state-of-the-art clinic in the country."

"I promise not to bribe small children to pretend to need your help."

Bruce laughs. "Thanks, I appreciate that."

"You better." He can hear her smiling. "Any one of us would help you if you asked, you know. I'm not naïve enough to think that this will be the last time you'll get low like this. Just talk to someone next time."

Bruce breathes through his nose, and for the first time in a long while he's completely calm. "Okay. It's a deal." 

**Author's Note:**

> Maybe not my best work, but still. Science fun fact: potassium iodide _is_ useful for anti-radiation purposes, but only because it takes up space in your thyroid that could be filled with radiated iodine, and doesn't help at all with basically any other form of radiation poisoning, nor does it undo damage that's already happened. But screw physics, write comics.


End file.
